Nuclear Waste Shipments May Soon Be Crossing Peace Bridge And Passing Through Greater Niagara Area

Posted August 18th, 2016 on Niagara At Large by NAL publisher Doug Draper

Dozens of truckloads of high-level, liquid nuclear waste may soon be crossing the Peace Bridge from the Chalk River nuclear facility in northern Ontario and through Niagara, on route to a processing plant in South Carolina.

The Peace Bridge crossing between Buffalo/Western New York and Niagara, Ontario. File photo by Doug Draper

According to a front-page story in this August 18th edition of The Buffalo News, the shipments may begin as soon as this September if a lawsuit quickly filed against the U.S. Department of Energy by a coalition of Canadian and U.S. environmental groups doesn’t stop them.

“It is terrifying for us to hear that the government is willing to endanger the lives of so many by the shipments of this highly dangerous liquid radiioactive waste through our community and those of others,” Lynday Schneekloth of the Sierra Club’s Niagara, Western New York was quoted saying in The Buffalo News story.

The environmental groups’ lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., describes the shipments at one point as “mobile Chernobyls on steroids” and the groups’ U.S. lawyer Terry J. Lodge is quoted calling them “a very significant public and environmentally risky venture without precedent.”

Opposition to the planned shipments has been longstanding from a number of citizens’ groups, including the Niagara Distric Council of Women (formerly the St. Catharines & District Council of Women) in Niagara, Ontario which last year succeeded in convincing Niagara’s regional government to pass a motion opposing them.

The nuclear waste was apparently used at the Chalk River facility, located in the Upper Ottawa Valley, in reactors and laboratories and is being taken to a Savanah River site in South Carolina where it will reportedly be enriched for use in U.S. commercial nuclear energy facilities.

Brian Higgins, a U.S. Congressman representing the Buffalo, N.Y. area urged his government earlier this year to submit the shipment plans to a full environmental review but so far there has been no positive reply to that request. In the August 18th Buffalo News article, Higgins charged that it would be “reckless and irresponsible” for the government to move ahead without such a review.

Niagara At Large will do its best to follow this issue and keep visitors to our site aware of further developments and what government offices you may contact with any questions or concerns you have.

In the meantime, here is the link to the August 18th Buffalo News story, followed by links to related stories, including past stories posted on Niagara At Large–

One response to “Nuclear Waste Shipments May Soon Be Crossing Peace Bridge And Passing Through Greater Niagara Area”

Even though Nuclear Waste is toxic for thousands of years it is still being used to enhance the Bottom Line on Corporate Profit and loss statements. We in Canada are constantly being bombarded with propaganda as to the viability of this by our Corporate Government. Brian Higgins, Congressman from Buffalo has protested these shipments and one wonders where his Canadian support IS…as there does NOT seem to be any protest by Political Parties or is it just because our CORPORATE media is mum on this travesty.